It’s the time of year to hit the road—and my road trip this week will take me to Music City (a.k.a. Nashville) for the Cattle Industry Convention and Trade Show, Feb. 1 to 4.

I won’t be alone. Nearly 7,000 of my closest friends in the beef industry will be there too. That could be attendance record—the most since 1998.

As a part of this year’s convention, High Plains Journaland Midwest Ag Journal will be covering the convention in a whole new way. Journal editors Doug Rich, Kylene Scott and I will be providing up-to-the-minute coverage at ncba.wordpress.com. You will be able to see stories about the meetings and speakers.

But we won’t just leave it to words to tell the story. We will be taking photos and video that will help you feel like you’re right there in Nashville with us. One of my favorite new features will be our short video interviews with cattlemen. We hope to ask as many producers as will stand still for us what they see as the major issues of 2012. We’ll talk about decisions being made at the convention, as well as what topics are important to them.

As a part of the blog, you can ask questions and interact with those of us at the convention. We’ll host a blog chat or two or three during the event. And we’ll be sure to do our best get you the answers.

Journal columnist Trent Loos also will be a part of the excitement. Trent’s new book, “The Best of Trent,” will be available and he will be signing copies. We will broadcast his radio shows from the booth, as well.